


Fixation

by Ias



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Obsession, Oral Fixation, Pre-Canon, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:39:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9186647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: Galen begins to construct a pattern; it’s impossible not to see how the pieces of data coalesce. He sees the way Orson always touches his own lips when he’s thinking, or chews on the tips of his gloves, jamming his thumb against his teeth like he might nurse the rim of a bottle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is brought to you in part by terribleoldwhitemen, who pointed out that Krennic/Ben Mendelsohn sure does touch his own mouth a lot. I swear she used the words "oral fixation" first. Still, I'm a beacon of sin.

Orson is on his final pen.

Galen sees it coming from the look on his face. Orson stares at the raised screen in front of them, tapping the stylus on the edge of the table. Deep in thought, his eyes trace the patterns of a power drive that will feed off of its own energy without overheating. The lines of thought on his brow deepen.

Galen watches as the pen goes still. He can practically count the seconds before it inevitably raises to Orson’s lips. He sets it between a canine and incisor and bites down, clenching the barrel between his teeth.

With a well-practiced gesture Galen reaches over to snatch it from his friend’s mouth, derailing whatever train of thought Orson was following. The look on his face is almost worth it.

“There’s not a writing implement in this room that isn’t covered in your tooth-marks,” Galen says before Orson can speak, holding the pen up as evidence.

Orson doesn’t bother to act chagrined. He snatches the pen back from Galen’s hand and jabs it at the paper in front of them. “I almost had the solution, you know. You might have just set us back another two months for the sake of an outdated writing implement.”

“You’ve been doing it since our school days. It must be a compulsion.”

Orson tosses the pen onto the table with a reproachful look. “It helps me think. An endeavor which you are presently making impossible.”

“Maybe I should start coating them in some kind of foul-tasting residue.”

“Point taken, Galen.”

But he doesn’t stop, and Galen knows he won’t.

It’s only a few days later when they’re both up late again, chasing the breakthrough they need. They talk less and less, until their words are just short, stunted things that swim between them in the substance of shared thought. At some point caf is passed around. Galen’s eyes still droop. And when he’s sitting with his head propped up on his hand, staring down at the diagrams and screens spread out before him, he looks up to see Orson with a pen in his mouth again.

This time, Galen doesn’t reach out to take it. He’s too tired to do anything but watch. Exhaustion and thought carves lines deeper into his friend’s face. The pen taps against his lips and then settles between them, begins to twist. And then Galen is no longer watching with idle curiosity. Because he can’t help but notice the way Orson’s mouth curves around it, the seam of intriguing darkness between his lips. There is no reason why Galen should notice these things. But he does.

At once Orson rips the pen from his mouth and tosses it on the table with a hoarse shout. “Got it,” he says. “We’ll use a quadruple grid, not a triad. One reactor operating at only 75% capacity, to allow for overloads. Like this…”

Galen is so distracted by the solution that he almost forgets the moments preceding it. But there are always more problems to face in his work, and there will always be more pens.

 

Galen begins to construct a pattern. He sees the way Orson always touches his own lips when he’s thinking, or chews on the tips of his gloves, jamming his thumb against his teeth like he might nurse the rim of a bottle. When he’s nervous, or trying to contain his anger, he has a distinct tendency to lick his lips. Whenever his mind is elsewhere, Orson’s hands inevitably find their way to his mouth. It’s a fixation, and Galen can’t help but fixate on it.

The distraction is inconvenient, and yet Galen allows it to continue. The effect of Orson’s subconscious gestures have their appeal. Galen permits himself the occasional glimpse as Orson runs the pad of his thumb over his lips. A short look, and nothing more. Galen wishes to keep it manageable. Controlled.

And yet he finds his eyes wandering when he isn’t paying attention, wandering in the same way Orson’s fingers reach up to thoughtfully trace his own lips.

 

There was a time in their partnership when they preferred to work apart, but Galen can scarcely remember it now.

Orson’s grasp of the theory will never rival Galen’s, but his mind makes the connections that Galen’s couldn’t see, recalling an old piece of research long forgotten or a technique they learned about in the Republic Futures Program. He has the mind of a builder, a person who draws together raw materials to form a greater whole.

Orson’s eyes scan the documents Galen has laid out in front of him. “Good progress. But I notice we’re still lagging on a new system of energy conductors.”

“I’m having some trouble with how to dampen the power recoil.”

Orson picks up a paper diagram, makes a face. “I don’t understand how you can prefer this to a datapad.”

“It helps me shape ideas differently.” Galen hands him a different paper, the most recent designs. “These are the ideas I’ve had since we spoke last. If you look at the drawing in the center—”

The paper shifts between them. When Orson hisses sharply Galen hardly notices at all—until a spot of bright red appears on the man’s thumb.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Orson says. “I did say your paper was a menace.” And of course— _of course_ —as Galen watches, Orson raises his thumb to his mouth, to suck the wound clean.  

Galen turns away in the next instant, eyes scraping the wall for the med kit he knows is there. He walks with measured steps, digs out a small bandage, and returns to Orson’s side. In this case it is acceptable for Galen to stare at his mouth, the curve of his lips around the pad of his thumb.

“Let’s get that taken care of,” Galen says. Orson takes his finger out of his mouth and squeezes it, as if testing to see whether he’s still injured. He is. A blot of red rises up again, and before he can shove it back in his mouth Galen takes his wrist and starts bandaging the cut for him.

It doesn’t strike him as an odd thing to do until he feels Orson’s eyes settle on him with a strange expression. By then it’s too late to stop, so he doesn’t. Galen rolls the strip of green medi-tape around Orson’s finger. It’s hard not to notice the lingering dampness on his skin, to think about what it would like for Galen’s finger to slide past his lips. He doesn’t meet Orson’s gaze. The tape bonds to itself and Galen lets go of Orson’s hand, though it takes some effort of will to do it slowly, methodically, rather than dropping it like an overheated piece of metal.  

Orson inspects the bandaged digit with a raised eyebrow. “I always did say I would pour my lifeblood into this project.”  

Galen laughs, more out of relief than amusement. There are worse things that Orson could have commented on. Galen is only grateful is he not required to speak for several moments more. He takes the time to corral his stray thoughts into a far corner of his mind, where he can ignore them until he discovers what to do with them.

They’re waiting for him when he settles into bed that night.

It’s days later before Galen returns to the schematics on his own, flipping through them in his quarters to double-check his work. He almost manages to flip past the page without seeing it. Almost. But the spot of red on the edge of a page seizes his eyes and he finds he can’t look away. For a long time he just stares. Eventually a single finger edges out to touch the corner of the stain with a fingernail. He can almost taste the copper.

The thoughts and images in his mind jostle, threaten to coalesce. He slides the edge of the paper under the pile, and realizes he’s been absent-mindedly toying with his lower lip.

 

It’s on the borders of sleep when Galen is at his weakest. The comfort of his bed is no comfort at all when it becomes a breeding ground for sleepless thoughts. It’s almost incredible, this fascination. Orson is his friend. Yes, Galen has looked at him before, but it was always easy to tear his eyes away. Now he sees nothing but the pressure of Orson’s gloved knuckle against his own mouth. In the darkness of his bedroom as he tries to sleep, there’s nothing he can fasten his gaze to in order to drive it out.

So after a while, he thinks about it. About Orson’s mouth—just the mouth, and not how it might be acted upon. The chapped skin. The lines that spring up around it when he smiles or frowns or talks. The edges of his lips always turned slightly down, the tightening in the corners when he’s fighting back a smile, the way his lower lip catches on his thumb as he thinks—until Galen realizes it’s his own thumb he’s imagining ghosting over those lips, wondering how they might feel.

Galen is not _embarrassed_. This preoccupation is merely an inconvenience. When next he sits down to lunch with Orson and looks anywhere but at his face, what he feels is not quite shame.

 

There is a sense of inevitability in the way Galen’s thoughts progress, one leading to another like solving the variables of an equation. He starts to think about how Orson would kiss. Not kiss _him_ ; Galen won’t allow himself that indulgence. He thinks about it as remotely as he can, wondering about the lovers Orson has had, how he might have leaned in to press his mouth to theirs. Or perhaps he would reach down to touch their hand, to pick it up and turn the palm over to plant a kiss in its center, a kiss that would wander up their fingertips. Galen thinks about how it would look, the way Orson’s lips would move, the slant of his eyelashes almost closed, but not quite—always watching, never quite at ease.

And then even that is not enough. Galen has to think about how it would _feel_. His nails dig into the underside of his pillow as he lies awake in bed, speculating on how the chapped skin on Orson’s lips might catch against his own. How the kiss would be so slow, exploratory, as languid as the fingers Orson slides over his own mouth. Galen pictures him leaning in, the hitch of their breathing, lips brushing and then falling apart and then nudging back together again, slow, methodical, unhurried. The slick warmth of his mouth opening, the hand Orson might raise to cup his elbow. Orson would kiss him like he planned to swallow Galen whole.

Only after he’s run his mind through every movement of the kiss does Galen let himself find release. He scrubs all thoughts of Orson from his mind and performs the act quickly, focusing his thoughts on his body and his body alone, before any shadow of Orson himself can insinuate itself back into his fantasies. Galen acknowledges to himself that it’s an arbitrary line to draw. He meditates on the curve of his friend’s lips for hours on end, but when he touches himself he thinks of nothing at all. It’s a cramped, stunted form of relief. 

He lingers on these scenarios in such detail they’re almost memories. When he sees Orson the next day for a split second he almost forgets they didn’t happen at all. Somehow, work continues as usual: in degrees of torture. Now Galen tries not to look at Orson at all, no more than necessary. He fails.

Really, it’s surprising Orson takes so long to notice in the first place.

 

“Why are you looking at me?”

Galen’s eyes jerk up to meet Orson’s. Though he says “at me”, the true object of Galen’s gaze was all too obvious. There’s a world of distance between the eyes and the mouth when all it takes is a quick dart of the eyes to betray them.

“I must have lost track of my thoughts,” Galen said. “Just drifting.”

“You weren’t drifting. You were _staring._ ” There’s a playful edges to Orson’s voice, but a hardness to it too. Galen takes a minute to marshal his thoughts. Keeping his face blank and his muscles relaxed never troubled him, compared to Orson’s restless agitation and emoting; but Galen never was good at lying when the time came to speak.

"You're constantly fidgeting with your mouth,” Galen says at last. “It’s very distracting."

As soon as he heard them, Galen realizes the words are incorrect. The pause that follows his remark is long enough for Galen to hang himself on. “…Distracting,” Orson repeats, his tone dry.

Galen just waves the comment away. “We should focus on getting the crystal resonance back in tune,” he says—bringing up the work is always guaranteed to refocus Orson’s energy on the task at hand. To his relief Orson doesn’t mention the blunder again that day, or the next, or the one after that. Orson is not a fool; he knew what Galen was looking at, and paired with Galen’s clumsy excuses, it would not be difficult to extrapolate why. Galen is careful to keep his eyes to himself, but he feels Orson’s on him. He’ll forget it all soon enough; Galen is sure of it. They both will.

It’s less than a week later when, while poring over a new set of diagrams and a new set of problems, Orson gets that thoughtful look in his eyes again. Slowly, his thumb raises to touch his lower lip. Without thinking, Galen’s eyes follow it. When Orson looks up at him a moment later, Galen knows he’s truly caught. He opens his mouth, an explanation faltering on his tongue. It dies when Orson holds his gaze, and keeps his thumb right where it is. Inviting Galen to watch.

That is the precise moment when Galen realizes he miscalculated. Orson is not going to forget. And he won’t let Galen forget, either.

This time, Galen lets himself stare.


End file.
